Part 37

If such were the case, we can readily conceive that supernal wisdom and benevolence might permit and foster the oncoming of an appalling and terrific struggle which should bring into vigorous action man's every latent energy, sweep away in its course many erroneous beliefs, hampering customs, and ruts of thought, and thoroughly overturn much which had long been deemed immovable truth. Such a course might be the most beneficent possible, even though it involved destruction of the comfort, peace, and lives of many innocent and most estimable inhabitants at the place and vicinity where the battle should be waged, and that, too, whether the war itself should be the ostensible offspring of revenge and malice, or a brave conflict for preservation of one's altars and fireside in peace.

Some amusement, and little else perhaps, may be furnished by presentation of what a spiritualist's fancy, prior to careful study of facts narrated by Tituba, had become accustomed to deem not only possible, but probable. She was a slave dwelling among oppressors of her kindred and race--oppressors of the negro, the Indian, and of those generally who were "guilty of a skin not colored like their own," and of worshiping gods different from their own. What more natural than that departed ones, whom the whites had defrauded, injured, and oppressed while dwellers here, and whose surviving kindred were still being treated in like manner, should embrace an opportunity which the mediumistic qualities and the abode of Tituba furnished, for perpetrating retaliation whence woes had been received? True Christian morality may denounce such action as being "shockingly wicked," but the more prevalent morality in the world--in the more resolute portions of it at least, and especially in the less enlightened--may be as ready to commend as to condemn it, and to applaud as to censure those whose fire and pluck induced and enabled them to pay over upon their oppressors wrong for wrong, even augmented with interest at the highest rates which their altered circumstances allowed. It having been discovered that Tituba's form was a portal for spirit return, fancy saw the spirits of her ancestral race, and hosts of ascended aborigines of Massachusetts soil, eagerly coming back through her helping properties, disposed and eager to cast their impalpable arrows and tomahawks at any members of the wronging race who might be vulnerable by such weapons. Scouts swiftly and widely spread over the spirit hunting-grounds knowledge of the glorious opportunity for retaliation and revenge which had come, and hosts of volunteers rushed thence with lightning speed to the alluring scene. Quick havoc ensued, and the great consternation, bewilderment, devastation, slaughter, disturbance of peace, and agonizings of terror and awe, which the invasion produced, gave keenest pleasure, satisfaction, and joy to the assailants. Possibly Indian spirits might then begin to cherish hopes of expelling all whites from the land of their fathers, and of re-acquiring and leaving the whole a legacy to red men's heirs.

But the whites, not less than the darker-skinned, were under the supervision of spirit guardians, friends, and helpers, who, though probably taken by surprise and at disadvantage, were by no means disposed to leave their wards, kindred, and loved ones to be long thus harassed and abused. Invisible hosts soon mustered, and warred against other invisible hosts over and around the Village; and when the struggle had been waged far enough to sever witchcraft's chains, the laws of the Highest permitted the guardians of the Christians to conquer a lasting peace whose balm would heal the wounds inflicted, and whose fruits would be emancipation from cramping errors, and consequent expansion and elevation of mental powers.

As, perhaps, appropriate sequent to our fanciful views, we next present something which was not born in our own brain, and which may or may not be statement of ancient facts. We have devoted but little time to directly seeking information from spirits relating to the subject upon which we are writing, and yet have seldom entered into conversation with any good clairvoyant, at any time during the last year or two, without receiving description of one or more spirits then in attendance, and manifesting desire to have us recognize them. In most cases they have shown their names. In this manner Cotton Mather, more than any other one, signifies that interest in our present work draws him near to us. Mather's mother, also Martha Goodwin, Rebecca Nurse, and others, have presented their cards through persons ignorant that individuals bearing such names ever lived. But Mather has done more. On two or three occasions, using a medium's organs of speech, he has entered into conversation with us upon his connection with witchcraft. He is not now well pleased with his blindness when in his physical form, and urges us to be more severe in our criticisms upon his course than historic facts permit us to be.

February 9, 1875, he was in control of a medium, and we inquired as to his present views of George Burroughs. At once and cordially he described Burroughs as one of the brightest of all spirits whom he had seen, and as "illumining whatever sphere he enters." We asked Mather if he had ever learned who the spirit was that came to Tituba and started Salem witchcraft. He had not. Had he met Tituba? "Yes." "Can you not," we asked, "find him through her?" "Probably," was his response; "and will try, if you wish it." "Well, then," we said, "two weeks from this day and hour we will meet you at this place." This was arranged through an unconscious medium, who never receives into her consciousness any knowledge of what her lips utter while she is entranced, and she was on that occasion. We did not inform her, nor did any other mortal than ourself know, that we arranged for a subsequent meeting with Mather.

We called upon the medium February 23, when forthwith, in her normal and conscious state, she said that she was then seeing at our side two spirits of very strange aspect, and of race or races unknown to her. One of them she described as a male, uncouth in aspect, having large piercing eyes, a very wild look, and as being clothed in a sort of blouse, beneath and below which were short pants tucked into the shoes; also his teeth were very large. The other was a female of unknown race, and of a race different from that to which the male belonged; her complexion was dark, but she was neither negro nor Indian, and exhibited the letter T.

This medium may have known, and probably did, that we were engaged in writing upon witchcraft; but she is not conversant with its history, nor did she know the names of individuals concerned in it, nor the parts any had severally performed.

Very shortly after having given the above description, the medium was entranced; soon Cotton Mather, speaking through her, signified that he had brought with him both Tituba and her nocturnal visitant when she was slave of Mr. Parris; also, he stated, that, since they were not accustomed to giving utterance through borrowed lips, he proposed to speak for and of them. The statement relating to the man was substantially as follows:--

"His name was Zachahara; he was of Egyptian descent, but a Ninevite, or dweller in Nineveh. His time on earth was somewhat before that of Moses. Not long after his death, he, a spirit, observed that a spirit by the name of Jehocah--not Jehovah--was working strange marvels, and enacting cruelties among the race from which himself had sprung, through one Moses, and was thereby acting out a spirit's purposes toward man through a mortal's form. At once he, Zachahara, felt strong inclination and desire to exercise his own powers in the same mode. The desire clung to him tenaciously, and ever kept him alert, to find a mortal whom he could use with efficiency rivaling that which Jehocah manifested through Moses. No one of his many trials, however, was very successful until he put forth his skill and power upon and through Tituba. His ruling motive was desire to ascertain how far he, being a spirit, could get and keep control of a mortal form, and what amount and kinds of wonders he could perform with such an instrument. The motive was devoid of either malice or benevolence; it essentially was that of the scientist seeking new knowledge of nature's permissions. To keep Tituba in good humor with himself, he freely made promises to bestow upon her many fine things; and, to please her, he would say and do anything he thought might add to his power over her, and, through her, over other mortals."

Such was the account; and, while it was coming upon our ears, it carried us back to familiar accounts of marvels of old, and we felt that the acts of Jehocah through Moses, and those of Zachahara through Tituba, bespoke motives so much alike in apparent barbarity, that, if either actor was blameworthy, it might be difficult to see why equal blame should not be meted out upon the other.

Mather, speaking of and for Tituba, said, that "when the man first came to her and sought her service and aid, he was very bright and pleasant; but that, when she declined to comply with his wishes and demands, he became awfully dark and terrible." Briefly, Tituba herself managed the medium's vocal organs, furnished a simpering confirmation of Mather's statement, and said, with a shrug and shiver, "he was awful! awful!"

Subsequent conversation at the same seance elicited from spirits their belief, that, as soon as a door of access to men through Tituba was discovered, numerous Indian spirits were able and eager to rush through and lend a helping hand to the old Ninevite, and were devoid of any strong desire to help gently; indeed, they were very willing to molest the whites on their own responsibility. Soon, when unimpassioned search for knowledge of what ability spirits possessed or might acquire to revisit and again act amid terrestrial scenes was too much attended by agents willing to enact, and actually enacting, havoc too severe to be longer tolerated, wise and compassionate spirits brought power to bear which soon put a stop to what was producing most agonizing consequences. Spirits claim that they did much in the way of changing the views of mortals, and preventing a renewal of prosecutions at the next term of court. Perceiving that enough cruelty had been enacted to make mortals ready to ask whether both humanity and God were not belied by the creed Christians were enforcing, they turned the minds of men to more rational and humane views.

Some time during the winter of 1874-5, Rev. G. Burroughs having poured out, through a medium's lips, a few sentences redolent with charity and heavenly grace, we asked him what he now deemed the motive which primarily induced some spirit to inaugurate the operations which brought himself and many others to untimely end? His response was, "I suppose it was the natural and proper desire of some spirit to resume communion with its dear ones on earth." No spirit has ever indicated to us a suspicion even that the spirits whose acts evolved witchcraft were either malevolent, censurable, or in any sense shockingly wicked.

Did supernal prescience select and post agents peculiarly fitted to perform the witchcraft tragedy? Perhaps so: and possibly Sir William Phips was not governor by mere chance. Some statements by Calef indicate that Sir William when young, perhaps while but a learner of ship-carpentry in Maine, received a written communication which led him to go to Europe and obtain means whereby to seek for a wreck, the finding of which brought him fortune and title. He long and carefully preserved the prophetic paper, and, when flush in means, paid the writer of it more than two hundred pounds. From the same or a similar source he fore-learned his becoming a commander, governor of New England, and other events of his life. Information of that kind usually comes to such as are mediumistic enough to be susceptible of guidance, or at least of swayings, by the intelligence from whom the prophecy issues. Sir Phips may have been himself mediumistic. The probable fact that the accusing girls named the governor's wife as one from whom they received annoyance bespeaks probability that she too had place in the class of impressibles. Therefore, one inclined to prosecute such speculations is here furnished with a basis on which to argue that the Infinite Prescience which permitted the advent of Salem witchcraft, also embraced fit instruments in fit position for controlling its course, and also for putting a stop to it as soon as it should have outwrought enough of seeming evil to beget the good which Infinite Benevolence purposed to bestow upon mortals. Spirits take to themselves much credit for the part they performed in changing the opinions and course of the authorities and people here in the autumn of 1692, and the early months of the following year.

The adjournment of the court, and no law permitting another session for months, gave opportunity for reflection. Also the actual and contemplated arrests of many of high standing and most estimable character were matters of sobering influence, so that reason resumed its sway; no more were tried for witchcraft, and all prisoners were set free. This may have occurred either with or without special action of spirits upon the public mind.

We now regard the primal motive as nearly or quite devoid of moral quality. It probably was either a natural and proper desire to get access to dear ones left on earth, or some experimental or some scientific impulse to test the power which a spirit could exercise over those encased in mortal forms. When, before the days of ether, good Dr. Flag had fixed his forceps firmly on our raging tooth, and given a long, strong pull till out of breath, our pains, our agony, our heavy blows upon his hand and arms, failed to make him let go. He was shockingly wicked at that moment, for he not only held on and kept us in torture, but pulled again without success; and even then he would not let go, but pulled yet once more, and the tooth came out. Spirits, getting access to mortals, may have judged that only through transient evils and sufferings could man get relief from severe chronic maladies, and that, when opportunity occurred, their kindest possible treatment of men was homoeopathic--was the curing like with like--curing evil by inflicting evil. They may have been so shockingly wicked as to do that.

Spirits may often, and generally explore and operate from motives not perceptibly different from such as actuate their human counterparts. The devoted vivisectionist seldom shrinks from entering upon, or gives up pursuit of, knowledge because the scalpel agonizes his living subject. So, too, a spirit in pursuit of knowledge--if, either casually or by intended experiment, finding himself controlling the will and organs of Tituba or some other impressible mortal, and thus opening up a new field for exploration--might be strongly inclined to see how far and efficiently he could wield forces of nature so as himself to sway the forms and affairs of embodied men. Each gain in power or skill for acting amid terrestrial beings, scenes, and objects, would naturally thrill him with pleasure, and incite him to follow up researches in the spirit of science. That spirit is prone to look upon sufferings which its own processes occasion, as but temporary incidents, and of little account in comparison with the beneficent results which its triumphs will procure. Extension of their own fields of knowledge and influence was perhaps among the chief motives which prompted spirits to perform the wonders that startled, frenzied, and agonized the subjects and observers of their operations in 1692. Another may have been self-gratification by revisiting well-known scenes; and yet another, beneficence to man by opening for his use a new source of knowledge and wisdom.

Realms unseen are the abodes of sympathetic as well as of scientific beings; and as soon as a false creed had been forced to disclose its falsity, the former may have seen occasion to dissuade the latter from acting further upon benighted dwellers in mortal forms, until time should bring man to calm reflection and retrospection, and to possession of such mental freedom as would embolden him to meet unawed, strange visitants from unseen realms, and extend to even such a friendly hand. The lapse of a hundred and fifty years brought such mental freedom to us, purchased by the sufferings of our fathers, that, undeterred by fears of the halter, we now can invite to our earthly homes the loved and saintly ones who have passed on to realms above, hold blissful and uplifting communings with them, and learn their justification of the wonderful ways of God both to and through the children of men and in all nature.

Whatever the ruling motive of the chief direct producer of Salem Witchcraft may have been, the resistless power which moves all things, including malignant motives, onward toward the production of ultimate good, caused the fierce conflict we are considering to soon put an effectual stop to prosecutions for witchcraft throughout all Christian lands, and shattered to fragments a pernicious creed which had long enslaved the Christian mind. Costly as that struggle was in pains, sicknesses, tortures, anguish, physical exhaustions, domestic distresses, social alienations, church discords, languishments in prison, fears, frenzies, and even life, the price may not have been high for the wide-spread and abiding blessings of mental freedom which it obtained.

LOCAL AND PERSONAL.

Members of the First Parish in Danvers, and all residents on the soil of Salem Village:--

About three years since it was my privilege to speak briefly concerning the marvels of 1692, on the spot where they transpired. Courtesy then required brevity, and some vagueness of statement resulted: my remarks on that occasion are embraced among the addresses appended to Rev. Charles B. Rice's admirable "History of the First Parish in Danvers, 1672-1872"--a production of much more than ordinary merit.

The present occasion is embraced to point out a misprint. On pages 186 and 187 of those bi-centennial offerings, I am made to say that "the little resolute band of devil-fighters here in the wilderness became, though all unwillingly, yet became most efficient helpers in gaining liberty for the freer action of nobler things than any creed," &c.--I never cherished a thought so derogatory to them as that they unwillingly became efficient helpers in gaining liberty. My spoken words were, that they unwittingly, that is, without knowing it, were being made instrumental in gaining mental freedom, or deliverance from the chains of error; and I believe that a large part of the preceding pages tends to make the truth of my actual statement apparent, while it shows the falsity of the one imputed to me.

The soil beneath you long has been and long will be either consecrated or damned to fame; damned, hereafter, if prevalent modern views of former actors there be correct; consecrated, if the ostensible actors be viewed as chosen combatants and instruments on witchcraft's last and most widely renowned battle-field.

Many of you know that I first drew breath and also received my earlier training and unfoldment on the soil of your town. My relations to witchcraft soil were not of my own choosing, and I feel no responsibility for them--feel no sense of gratulation, and none of shame, because of them. Still, no doubt, they increase my desire to set forth the merits of former dwellers at the Village as having been as great and noble, and their faults as few and small, as authenticated facts fairly demand; and this not because of anything done or suffered by any one of my personal ancestors, no one of whom, so far as I have learned, was either accuser, accused, or witness in any witchcraft case. There, however, has been transmitted orally from sire to son what possibly indicates that one of them was exposed to arrest. Immediately after the prosecutions ceased, Joseph Putnam, father of General Israel, was a firm and efficient opponent to Mr. Parris's retaining position as minister at the Village. Tradition says that when rage for arrestings was high, he, being then only twenty-two years old, and his still younger wife, kept themselves and their family armed, their horses saddled and fed by the door, day and night for six months. This was preparation for either resistance or flight, as circumstances might render expedient in case an arrest should be attempted there. Opposition to prevalent beliefs, therefore, may not be a new feature in the family history. The heretic to the notions of many to-day, may have had an ancestor heretical to the witchcraft creed in 1692.

But if heresy has come by inheritance, charity combines with it; for my heart is gladdened by each newly discovered indication that Joseph's elder half-brother, Thomas Putnam, the great and impartial prosecutor, and Ann, daughter of Thomas the great witch-finder,--also that Mr. Parris and many other former villagers,--never, any one of them, acted any part in relation to witchcraft that was not prompted by devotion to the relief and good of their families and neighbors, or forced upon them by unseen and irresistible agents.

Your trusted teachers upon the subject--Upham, Fowler, Hanson, and Rice, all well informed in most directions, and well-intentioned--have severally favored the view that neither supermundane nor submundane agents were at all concerned in producing your witchcraft scenes. Their course throws tremendous and most fearful responsibilities upon both the fathers and daughters of a former age; and not responsibilities alone, but also accusations of deviltry upon the children, and of stupidity and barbarity upon the fathers, which make them all objects of aversion, and a stock from which any one may well blush to find that he has descended.

No one of these teachers went back to the commencement of the strange doings, and scanned the testimony of Tituba, that personal participator in them, and the best possible witness. No one of them used, and probably none but Upham had at command, her simple but plain statements, that a spirit came to her and forced her to help him and others pinch the two little girls in Mr. Parris's family, at the very time when their mysterious ailments were first manifested. The keen and exact Deodat Lawson states that the afflicted ones "talked with the specters as with living persons." Mention of spirits as being seen attendant upon the startling works is of frequent occurrence in the primitive records. Therefore, facts well presented and authoritative have been left unadduced by your teachers. They, however, are a part, and a very important part, of things to be accounted for. Any theory of explanation that fails to embrace such is essentially faulty, misleading, and not worthy of adoption. Fair respect for historic facts, and especially for the reputation of those men and young women who were prominently concerned in its scenes, very properly and forcefully demands a widely different and less humiliating and aspersory solution of your witchcraft than such as has been proffered in the present century.